eBay Mobile Challenge: Devising Date Nights Using the StubHub App

By Reena Jana
February 28, 2011

ny yankees, kanye west

Using eBay's StubHub mobile app, you can easily book tickets for Yankees games (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images), Kanye West concert tickets (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Contributor) and a variety of other performances, sports games, and more.

Every parent of young kids dreams of the mythical Date Night, but trying to actually organize an evening out can be tough because it's so time consuming (the planning part—not to mention the date itself!). Finding the minutes required to research and purchase tickets to concerts, theater performances, or sports events can be practically impossible amid the hours of work, playdates, and preschool that make up each day.

But when I lamented this fact to The Inside Source Editorial Director Meredith Barnett, herself a new mother with similar frustrations, she suggested that I turn to the eBay iPhone app for StubHub (a company owned by eBay). In fact, she suggested I make it part of our ongoing "eBay Mobile Challenge" series in which we seek to accomplish previously arduous tasks (like setting up of date nights or planning outfits for holiday parties) using only the iPhone and an eBay-owned app. My goal this time around: to set up a series of innovative date nights using StubHub in just an hour's time.

One reason why I immediately liked the eBay StubHub iPhone app, which also works on the iPod Touch, is that it can find upcoming and even last-minute tickets for events targeted for my hometown immediately, thanks to the GPS abilities of the iPhone. The opening screen of the StubHub iPhone app, in fact, will point you toward what’s coming up in your city in the next seven days, in a variety of categories. In a matter of minutes, I easily nabbed StubHub tickets to the Shakespeare play, The Merchant of Venice, on a Thursday evening. First Date Night of the Year planned—done!. You don’t even need to type in a search or scroll through listings to find tickets right away. For anyone who’s short on time, is a procrastinator, or just wants to have a spur-of-the-moment live entertainment experience, the “Next 7 days” feature is a super-handy tool.

In general, the StubHub iPhone app’s interface is easy to navigate. You can choose what type of event you’re seeking, or select StubHub tickets by venue. For instance, I started to see if there was a sports event that might interest my husband. Yeah, I know: sports don’t sound like the most romantic evening, but the point is that I wanted to surprise him with StubHub tickets for a future date night that he’d totally love. And he totally loves the New York Yankees.

StubhHub

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StubHub opening screen.
Upon opening the StubHub app, you are immediately pointed toward what's coming up in your city in the next seven days, in a variety of categories.
When buying tickets for a game, you can see the number, row and price of tickets available.
The "favorites" icon at the bottom of the screen, pulls up a list of my favorite bands from your iPod library. When you touch the name of a band or a singer, the app searches StubHub for tickets to their concerts.
The StubHub app provides color maps for most venues, including this one for Arthur Ashe stadium, the site of the U.S. Open.
With the StubHub app, you can type in various locations, and search for tickets that don't correspond with your phone's GPS tracker. Here are a variety of listings for the Bay area.
By tapping on a tiny star icon to the left of the name of a team, band or venue, you can mark it as a favorite, allowing you to more quickly search for related tickets in the future.

Using the StubHub iPhone app, I could choose by what teams A-Rod and Derek Jeter were set to play this spring, and a cool bar graph at the bottom of the iPhone’s screen shows the price range of tickets available. Another date night, all set!

I discovered some fun features of the StubHub app—for instance, when I selected the “favorites” icon at the bottom of the screen, it pulled up a list of my favorite bands from my iPod library (yes, Interpol, Feist, and Kanye West…admittedly a spectrum of diverse music!), in alphabetical order. When I touched the name of a band or a singer, the app searched for StubHub tickets to their concerts. Very cool. So I nabbed U2 tickets for July as a possible wedding-anniversary evening out, and congratulated myself on getting a head start on that future date!

Speaking of future dates, I scrolled through a number of annual events that I’ve always wanted to attend—namely the U.S. Open tennis tournament. Although it won’t take place until August, I was able to buy tickets for an evening game six months ahead of time. And when I was searching for my seats, I pulled up a colorful map of Arthur Ashe stadium, which the StubHub iPhone app provides for most venues. I was able to check out what seats would provide the best view before I purchased them.

Now, Date Night doesn’t have to be confined to your hometown. For instance, we have a trip planned to San Francisco next month, and I thought, why not add a concert as part of the vacation—and have Date Night out West? With the StubHub iPhone app, you can type in various locations, and search for tickets that don’t correspond with your phone’s GPS tracker. For our Bay Area getaway, I looked for concerts in the City by the Bay in March, and found a few available tickets for the electronica band Royksopp at the Regency Ballroom. There were enough seats available to even invite another couple, namely, the friends we'll be staying with. The tickets, I realized, would be a fun and unexpected “hostess gift” for them and also provide a great experience and memories for all of us. Who knew date night can't be double date night?

There are also features of the StubHub iPhone app that make future searches easier. For example, when you pull up the list of available StubHub tickets by venue, or, say, sports team, you can tap on a tiny star icon to the left of the name. This marks it as one of your favorites (I starred the Beacon Theater, which is close to our apartment in Manhattan), and can help you more quickly search for related tickets.

I set up monthly date nights through the summer in just about an hour. Now all I need to do is book the babysitters…

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